Esta es por tu. Y tu. Y tu." And with these eight words, my heart breaks a little. Where I am is 3,100 meters above sea level, maybe a hundred meters higher, clinging to the rocky scrub of a mountain village. A sheepdog barks its weary warning at me as I get too close to its flock, straggly lambs gambol amongst the adobe huts roofed by corrugated iron and dust. And where I am is also in the menacing glare of Peru's highest mountain, Huascaran. A town called Huaraz. The speaker is a young girl, Rosy. I think she is twelve years old but the children of the Andes, Los Niños Andinos, are all smaller than most children we know in developed countries. Unknown to her, Rosy has just committed one of the most generous and kind acts I have ever had the fortune to witness or experience. Using the very last of whatever money she has managed to save from God-knows-what source, she has appeared in the doorway of the local tienda (shop), with three ten centimo lollipops; one for Jim, the founder of Changes For New Hope, the NGO I am working with. One for Bex, my girlfriend, who introduced me to this extraordinary organisation. and one for me. What makes this act of giving so alien to my experience, is that Rosy has practically nothing of material value to her name. Her father is a cobbler; with three front teeth poking out from a constant grin, he will cheerfully repair anyones' boots or shoes for less than a US dollar, yet walks around in nothing more than a pair of sandals fashioned from an old car tyre. What makes this special is that back in the UK I have often complained of having 'no' money, yet somehow have always managed to selfishly get down to the pub for a pint, or ordered a Chinese takeaway because I'm too lazy to cook. Yet this girl, in exchange for which I have done very little I feel, has used her last six pence to buy me a present. She has probably not bought herself a lollipop for months. And this act of kindness serves only to emphasise the importance of what we are trying to achieve here. In forming Changes For New Hope, Jim is attempting not merely to provide these poor children, living in huts structured like 1950s American fallout shelters, with a basic grasp of English, Maths and artistic skills, but, instead, with a lasting sense of self respect; an understanding of the difference between right and wrong and of common sense and all its benefits. He is trying to break the mould that their parents have been cast from, a mould which ends either in penniless manual labour or an unproductive life of crime, petty thievery and pick-pocketing the favoured occupations of the illiterate and uneducated. I kick a ball around with Anthony, his shoes flapping around his feet. He takes a UK size 4 and there have been no donations to fit him for a year now. Our excitement kicking the ball turns quickly to dismay, however, as he loses control of the ball and it sails off the path and rolls quickly several hundred feet down the steep mountainside, and we cannot see it anymore. His tears tell a story of loss. Only a ball, perhaps, to you or I; to him, it is the equivalent of us losing our Playstation 3. The opening of the Play-Doh revives him, however. At Bex's request I have brought eight pots of the childrens' classic craft toy with me. Anthony runs over to Jim and manages to acquire a pot of blue Play-Doh, and I watch with amazement as within the space of a few minutes he fashions incredibly accurate and lifelike crabs, cameras, sheep, dogs; his fingers blur into each other as a succession of objects are created and dismantled with scary ease. Imagine how he would feel if, instead of Play-Doh, that was clay, and he had access to an oven to bake these shapes in. And then sold them. And then used his money to buy himself not just necessities but luxuries. A new ball, perhaps. Not all of the work that Jim does here is theoretical. Many of these kids regularly go several days without food. Using his own savings, from a lifetime of working in Baltimore (no mean feat, to fans of The Wire), he tries to help the neediest and most critical cases wherever possible. On more occasions than he can list he has bought $5 worth of food for a family, enough to keep four people in decent food for up to a week. This is how much money I spent on a pint of cider on my last night in England. That I didn't even finish. He has put shoes on bare feet, clothes on naked backs and food in empty bellies. But it is never enough. Anyone who has ever had a child knows how quickly their feet grow. Cries of "Circulo, circulo", from Jim bring fifteen excitable children under control, and their faces momentarily grow dark with sadness, unconsciously mirroring the craggy peaks that rise above us. It is nearly time for us to leave. Jim has a very simple motto that he wishes the kids to adopt as an attitude towards life. We join hands in a circle, and he points at Tathi-Andrea, a five-year old who brings new meaning to the word 'cute'. "HACER LO CORRECTO!" she shouts, her voice surprisingly loud in the stillness of the evening. "SI!" We all reply in unison, and punch our fists to the sky, index fingers pointed up in that universal gesture of positive intent. "HACER LO CORRECTO!" Bex shouts and the affirmative is shouted back at her, louder, even, than before. "HACER LO CORRECTO!" I shout, and am drowned in their response. For a moment, Jim's upraised index finger is silouetted in the setting sun, and once again I get what we are doing here. Hacer lo correcto. Do the right thing. It's not just a bunch of Andean kids who can benefit from following it.